Some raw facts on food

What do you see in the photo? A young, radiant, fit-looking woman wearing only earrings and a necklace of fresh blueberries. She doesn't seem to fit the stereotype many of us have of the pasty and emaciated vegetarian, does she?

This is Yasmin Fudakowska-Gow, a Pointe Claire yoga instructor who posed for the September page of a calendar for the new year called Raw Beauty 2011: 13 Real People Gone Raw. The models advocate a raw food diet, which means eating only, or mostly, plant-based, uncooked foods, like raw fruits and vegetables, nuts and seeds.

The models, several of whom are Montrealers, are not all young, but they all seem to be well-muscled and undeniably healthy looking. Considering none of these photos are airbrushed, and the models were asked to wear nothing but raw food (not even makeup), the photos speak volumes about what a raw food diet can do for you.

The calendar is the work of Montreal artist Tanya Wood and Halifax photographer Nick Rudnicki. Wood is an enthusiastic proponent of the raw food movement and she wanted to highlight the health and fitness of people embrace this dietary choice, or who try to embrace it as faithfully as possible in a northern climate. Raw foodists believe that the planet and our bodies will thrive if we increase our intake of natural, plant-based foods and reduce our reliance on meat and processed foods.

I'm going to buy one of these calendars and put it in my husband's stocking. I want it hanging in my kitchen. (Yes, I will let my children look at this calendar with naked people in it. There are many things I would like to be able to protect my children from in this world, but the sight of a healthy, naked human form is not one of them.)

Frankly, I have no intention of fully embracing the dietary philosophy the calendar preaches. I like both raw and cooked fruits and veggies thanks, and I like to eat meat (cooked) from time to time. And my husband is less inclined than I am to go all vegan and raw. I also have two children who try valiantly to adhere to their own peculiar dietary philosophies. One is a committed "candy-tarian," who eats the odd vegetable but no meat whatsoever, and the other a rather rigid "pasta-tarian." So we are a very long way from a raw food diet.

But I want this calendar hanging in my kitchen just the same, as an attractive reminder to eat as much unprocessed, plant-based food as possible. I find that the more I expose myself and my family to the philosophies of people whose lifestyles are much greener and healthier than mine, the more inclined we are to move just a little farther in the right direction along the eco-spectrum.

Just researching raw foodism and interviewing people about the calendar last week has inspired me to eat beets (roasted), beet greens (stir fried), yams (boiled) and several fruit smoothies (with yogourt). Of course, none of those foods prepared that way fall under the strict "raw food" definition, but they are definitely healthier than burgers and fries.

But the real reason I want to move away from meat as a staple is environmental. I'm not going to get into a long lecture here about how raising animals for food is an incredibly inefficient and ultimately unsustainable way to feed people. Suffice to say that raising animals for food uses vastly more water, land and energy than growing plants, and emits astronomically more greenhouse gases. And if you aspire to learn and do what you can to protect the planet, you can't avoid the realization that eating lots of industrially produced meat runs completely counter to that effort.

Fudakowska-Gow, who lectures regularly about the environmental impacts of what we eat, likes to quote an edited version of author Michael Pollan's famously incorrect zinger that "a vegan in a Hummer has a lighter carbon footprint than a beef eater in a Prius."

To his credit, Pollan, author of The Omnivore's Dilemma, stopped using that stat after researchers from the University of Chicago published a study showing it was off. (A heavy meat eater puts about two tons more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere each year than a vegan, they estimated, while the difference between a Hummer and a Prius is about 4.76 tons per year.)

Of course, Pollan's intended message is still correct. If we want to curb climate change, it's as or more important to cut back on meat eating as it is to reduce our use of fossil-fuel burning vehicles. And driving a Hummer, and eating meat three times a day every day are on the same order of magnitude of environmental negligence.

Fudakowska-Gow prefers to make the point this way: "A vegetarian driving a Hummer emits less greenhouse gas than a meat eater who doesn't own a car."

Fudakowska-Gow does not expect the calendar to push vast numbers of people to practice pure raw foodism.

"It's not about everybody going 100 per cent raw or vegan, it's about making more conscientious decisions and being a little less selfish," said Fudakowska-Gow.

Hmmm. Eating meat is selfish? Them's fightin' words. But the truth of the matter is, our bodies don't need or want all the meat we are eating. And our planet simply can't keep serving it up at this rate, not if we want it to be a safe and healthy place for our grandchildren.

The calendar is available at several health food stores around Montreal, at the Crudessence raw food restaurants (105 Rachel St. W. and 2157 Mackay St.), and online for $16.99 plus shipping at www.rawbeautycalendar.com.

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